It's Drop Cap Friday!

This week has been a wonderful kind of mad. I started it off on Sunday perfecting my portfolio for a Wednesday morning interview. It was more like a Smunday, because I didn't go to sleep till 4:30 on Monday morning. When Monday restarted around 8:30am, I got my resumes to press, and they came back looking dapper. Tuesday, I took a breather, because Smunday and Monday, while enjoyable and exciting, they were pretty intense. Wednesday started off with one of the best, most enjoyable interviews I've ever had, if not the best. I can't say I've ever walked away from an interview so excited for a job opportunity. For the remainder of Wednesday up till the present, I've been working on some new stuff for Harvest Vineyard Church. So without further ado, the letter P: inspired by the paragraph symbol.

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Drop Cap umm... Thursday: N and O

Two weeks of drop caps were missing and now they're not. And they happen to spell one of my favorite words: NO. I'm about 57% kidding on that. Moving on. I think I'm getting better at these. The N makes me think of a fancy sushi joint. The O makes me think of the ocean (hey, O is for Ocean! I know that because I passed the third grade). I can't tell if the curl on the inside looks 3D or not, and I can't tell if that works. I think I have to take a break from looking at it, and then look at it some more. Either way, I'm satisfied with what I'm coming up with now, where I really felt like I was grasping at straws when I started this.. I think I might do another alphabet after I'm done with this one.

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Drop Cap Sunday: M

I came up with the idea for this week's drop cap M about four days before hand. I was sold on the idea from the second it popped into my head. I believe this letter M is strong in concept, but could use a little more contrast in the strokes, or smaller loops on the sides to draw the attention to the letter itself. I may get rid of the loops altogether. I think before I take these into Illustrator, I'm going to fine tune them on paper first.

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Drop Cap Sunday: L

Ladies, and gentleman, the letter L.  I was going for a Frank Lloyd Wright feel, and it turned out to be a mix of FLW and the Renaissance. I wasn't unsatisfied with it though. When I get to the fine tuning stage of this project, I'll adjust the stroke lengths, and make all the lines parallel. The great thing about thumbnails like these is that they don't have to be perfect. One thing I noticed this week is that I'm getting a little more diverse with my ideas, and they're coming to me quicker. I'm thinking about them less. I'm enjoying this more and more, and each week I get even more excited to render them digitally!

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Drop Cap Sunday: A Double Dose of K

The first one matched the style of the J too much, so I challenged myself to do second. I'm finding that I really enjoy illustrating letters. It's something that I want to learn more about and get better at.

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Long Overdue Updates.

I got a full time job, which doesn't leave much time for creating or blogging. Here's a quick update with what I'm up to:

30 Day Photo Project
That dropped off when I got my job, however, I hope to get that back and finish it. I work evenings and the few hours I have in the morning are often spent tending to household matters. I fully intend on finishing this project, as it was a TON of fun, and I'd hate to just let it die.

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30-Day Photo Challenge: Ready, Set, Bokeh!

The adventure day 9 sent me on was bokeh. My first thought was, that’s great, but what about it? As I previously mentioned, I don’t want to just tick stuff off my list, and that is making this a challenge. I wanted an interesting subject, where bokeh could be incorporated, instead of simply just being the subject. I didn’t want to just shoot bokeh, for the sake of it.

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30 Day Photo Challenge: Substance and Sunsets

The only challenging thing about this so far is finding the shots within a reasonable distance. I live in Iowa. We don’t have such obvious scenery all around as one might in the western states. In addition, I like to shoot images with substance, not just shooting to check something off a list, and I most certainly don’t shoot something that looks “artsy.” I shoot for substance, and sometimes that’s difficult to find. Part of being a photographer is learning how to see substance, and look for substance. When all that surrounds you is beautiful, your shot is already made for you. It’s much easier to just point and click. When you lack that luxury, planning your shot can require problem solving and a search for substance.

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30-Day Photo Challenge: Days 1, 3, and 5–7

Last time I tried a photo-a-day challenge, it was for a class. I took pictures representing health and fitness, and more specifically, representations of ME doing things to care for myself physically. I strayed from it quickly, and a lot of the images were uninteresting. The time before that was a 365-day challenge, and almost every photo was terrible. I had no idea how to use my camera, other than how to shoot in manual. It’s not difficult to see why I would be uninterested in doing yet another challenge.

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